Paterson reportedly to not seek election

Several news outlets, including The Times-Union's Capitol Confidential blog, are reporting that Gov. Paterson will end his campaign for governor.

The decision comes in the wake of a devastating piece by The New York Times on the case of a top Paterson aide who was accused of 'violently assaulting' a woman. She claimed that a member of the governor's security detail pressured her to drop the claim. The State Police superintendent admitted a trooper visited the woman but claims there was no pressuring involved; the Times notes that the State Police had n jurisdiction in the matter.

Then, the Times reports, just before she was due to return to court to seek a final protective order, the woman got a phone call from the governor, according to her lawyer. She failed to appear for her next hearing on Feb. 8, and as a result her case was dismissed.

The deputy commissioner for public safety then resigned after claiming she'd been lied to by the affair by the State Police superintendent.

I've long been an admirer of the governor but his saga is a tragic case. He is quite clearly the only person in Albany with the fortitude to address the state's fiscal crisis and generally take on powerful vested interests. And he's taken courageous stands on important issues like equal rights for gays and ethics reform. But few seemingly good men have shot themselves in the foot more often than Paterson.

Further, any moral high ground on ending the culture of corruption in Albany has completely evaporated because of this affair. The politicization of law enforcement, which also undermined his predecessor's credibility, has to be one of the most unacceptable things in a state governed by the rule of law.

Additionally, in the wake of the different but related scandals involving Sens. Hiram Monserrate and Kevin Parker, the last thing Albany needs is more tolerance of disgusting domestic abusers and bullies.

Maybe, this organization should start giving seminars at the Capitol.

The smear campaign against Paterson

Bob over at Planet Albany offers his thoughts on the character assassination campaign (my words, not his) against Gov. Paterson, a campaign extraordinary even by the venal standards of New York.

The Legislative Gazette reports via its Twitter feed that Gerald McEntee, head of the state's powerful AFSCME public workers union, recently said of Paterson, "He's our biggest foe in the state of New York ... He's going down."

Public sector unions don't like Paterson because he's targeting them during this budget crisis, which is inevitable since spending on things like health care and education make up the majority of the state's spending. You can't address a serious budget crisis if most of the budget is off the table. It makes you wonder who (possibly singular, most likely plural) might be behind the character assassination campaign against the one of the rare politicians in Albany with both a clue and a spine.

We wouldn't have to wonder if someone had the guts to attach their name to the accusations.

Opposing and governing

There's a great scene in the movie The American President. In the movie, the president character's main opponent always concludes his speeches with, "I'm Bob Rumsen and I want to be president." In one press conference, the president defiantly declares, "I'm Andrew Shepherd and I AM the president." I thought this little snipet illustrates the fundamental difference between opposing and governing, something certainly related to the course of New York state politics today.

Gov. Paterson presented his executive budget on Tuesday. In it, he proposed cuts to all areas, including the inevitable cuts to health and education (which make up a majority of all state spending).

Predictably, special interest groups fell over themselves explaining why they (hold hand over heart) understand the state's tough fiscal situation but that shouldn't stop the governor from exempting their worthy cause from the pain or at worst, from making sure their worthy cause is cut last and least of all. You don't need to be a math major to understand that if everything is exempt from cuts, then nothing will be cut.

Equally predictably, self-described fiscal conservative legislators from northern New York denounced the governor's plan to close three area prisons. They are afraid that it will harm the economy of the region and, shock of shocks, want downstate prisons closed instead. When they called for fiscal restraint, they meant for other regions, not theirs. It gives credence to the complaint of some that the bloated nature of the prison-industrial complex is not about the security of citizens but is a taxpayer-funded rural economic development program.

I don't buy it and neither does Bob at Planet Albany. He accurately describes Paterson's budget as 'necessary.' And he tells the governor's critics to put up or shut up.

The governor's critics, who are many, and potential opponents including Andrew Cuomo, should be required to provide specific alternatives that would actually make the numbers add up, he notes.

And he's right.

It's easy to offer broad platitudes and happy rhetoric from the cheap seats. And it's easy to be popular when your primary job is to sue the bad guys. But those with the ACTUAL RESPONSIBILITY TO GOVERN have to make specific choices. The differing fortunes of Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and Governor Eliot Spitzer illustrates that. Governors and legislators don't have lawsuit or subpoena power to pass a responsible budget. It's easy to say "leave my pet cause alone." But in a fiscal crisis like the present one, everyone's pet cause should share the burden. No one should be exempt, least of all those who receive the greatest share of the public largesse.

Special interests groups have to advocate for their membership; it's their job. But legislators and the governor are responsible for representing the interests of ALL the people, not just the most well-funded groups with the most highly-paid lobbyists. They also have the unique responsibility to try to get the state's fiscal house in order, something the special interest groups aren't constitutionally required to consider. Unfortunately, only the governor seems to realize all this.

The peanut gallery vs the hot seat

Did you ever notice how pretty much every critic of the governor says, "While we understand the state's difficult financial situation and the need to cut spending, we just think that (our unique and irreplacable group) should be the singular exception."

Apparently, it's a lot easier to "understand" something that to be in a position of responsibility and actually be forced to make decisions for the greater good.

At least there's one person in NYS with the guts to make tough decisions

Not that he hasn't caused some of his own problems, but I feel a little bad for Gov. Paterson. He was wildly popular back when he was telling people what they wanted to hear. But when he started putting his talk into words, he found out that people are hypocrites. They want politicians to TALK about fiscal restraint but flip out when they actually try to PRACTICE fiscal restraint. A 'vital program' is one that helps you. 'Wasteful spending' is one that helps someone else.

Paterson is trying to address a huge budget deficit with an incompetent and crooked legislature. But all the media chattering class has been able to focus on is presidential body language, cheap shots at the governor's disability, incessant-polls-as-a-substitute-for-news and two stupid little soap operas (one surrounding the petty little melodrama of a Kennedy family member scorned and the other regarding the ambitions of a former Kennedy family member).

New Yorkers are facing skyrocketing property taxes and the media's more interested in diving the meaning of a presidential embrace.

I guess that's the difference between having the responsibility to govern and sitting in the peanut gallery.


Note: WAMC's Capitol Connection has a good half hour interview with the governor.

The truth(s) about 'socialized medicine' and why Wal-Mart backs Obama's plan

(That would be the socialized medicine that saved my dad's eyesight)

As the health care 'reform' bill winds its way through Congress, things are heating up. President Obama and his allies seem hell bent on imposing the failed Massachusetts' health care model on the entire nation. The MA plan requires all citizens to have private health care and, if I understand correctly, fines them if they don't. But affordable health insurance in the state has been found to be sorely lacking. If I'm a private insurance company CEO, I'd love for this racket to go national.

Additionally, the Obama plan would also impose an 8 percent payroll tax on businesses that don't provide health insurance to their workers, but it does nothing to address health care costs that make the insurance unaffordable to such businesses in the first place. As such, the president's plan would decimate small businesses. Perhaps, this is why Wal-Mart has backed the Obama plan.

Single payer health care is the only sensible plan. Everyone would have access to it so everyone would pay for it via their income taxes, just like everyone pays for having access to police/sheriff and fire departments.

This is not a question of 'the perfect being the enemy of the good.' The Obama plan would harm small businesses while doing nothing to achieve universal health care access that's actually affordable. Issuing people fines for not being able to afford health care? How is that 'progressive reform'? Sounds like more change we can't believe in.

There was a good piece in Common Dreams from an American professor who spent several years living in Finland. In it, the woman gives a first-hand (not third-hand) experience with the Scandinavian country's universal health care system.

First, she takes a slap at the deceptive propaganda inherent in the 'debate' in this country. These horror stories are never accompanied by data, just hearsay and anecdotes from “a friend of a friend” in Canada or the United Kingdom. Rarely have I heard from people who have themselves experienced a universal public health care system. As one of those people, I thought I should speak up.

She points out that while living in Finland, her taxes were higher, but her take home pay was about the same as it was in the US, once health insurance premiums and expenses are deducted.

She recounted her exemplary experience in giving birth to her son in Finland, praising the care she received along the way.

Though interestingly, she doesn't mention endless paperwork or hours of arguing with insurance bureaucrats over wrongly denied claims.

She writes: [In Finland], I never had to wait to see a medical professional, nor was any necessary procedure delayed or denied. Every nurse and doctor I saw was caring and knowledgeable, and spent whatever time was necessary to make sure that I received the care I needed.

I have now been living and working back in the US for 6 months, and already I have had problems with my health insurance plan through my employer. I found out the hard way (that is, at the doctor’s office after my son’s vaccination visit) that my son had been arbitrarily dropped from my plan months before, even though I had been paying the premiums for the family plan all along. It took almost a week of phone calls to get him reinstated. All the while, I privately wondered if the two ear infections he had in the spring had prompted some computer at the health insurance company to calculate that he was “overusing” the system, and automatically drop his coverage.

She concludes: For every anecdote they have about a Canadian waiting six months for necessary open heart surgery, I can find twenty Americans for whom that equally necessary surgery is completely out of reach.

This presence of third world-style health care camps in rural America attests to this.

North Country Public Radio has a story on how a health care report is being buried by New York's Democratic Gov. David Paterson. The report finds eliminating the traditional role of the insurance companies from the health system [single payer] would save [the state] $20 billion dollars a year. New York's budget gap last year was around $18 billion.

That single payer costs less despite covering everyone is not news to readers of this blog.

As social justice activist Mark Dunlea pointed out in the NCPR report, one would think that a floundering governor with poll ratings stuck for months in the low 20s would be eager to try something bold, especially something he once was supported when he was a state senator.

Then again, Barack Obama also supported single payer before he became chief executive.

Cut the budget or the corporate welfare?

If you support a progressive agenda, then support a progressive candidate.

I've been a big fan of the way David Paterson has tried to run New York since becoming the Accidental Governor. He recognizes that the state is facing a serious budget crisis and that the state has to fundamentally change the way it does things. He understands and is trying to make legislators accept that irresponsible spending habits have contributed to what was a state budget crisis even before the collapse of Wall Street. He's lectured repeatedly and, astonishingly, to great public approval, on the need for austerity. He understands that the status quo is unacceptable.

Or at least I thought he did.

Just days after saying he'd seek a further $2 billion in cuts to the existing state budget, Paterson has said that Albany can afford to waste $1.2 billion in subsidy handouts to Advanced Micro Devices, in possibly the largest corporate welfare scheme in state history.

I am disappointed beyond words in Paterson. He'd appeared to show courage in standing up to both public sector unions and the business lobby in pushing for across the board cuts. But when it came to one of the most obvious cuts of all, gargantuan, no strings attached handouts, he reverted back to the bad old habits.

Shame on him.